Distractions and adventures in the knitting world

Month: April 2018

The annual Tulip festival team takes place in the Mt. Vernon/La Connor area(located about an hour north of Seattle with no traffic). It is beautiful a great place to go with family and take pictures(I’m a sucker for good photography).

La Connor is a fun little town and there are little shops and restaurants in the downtown area which are fun to look through… In Mt. Vernon(which is a bigger city) has a nice little yarn show called Wild Fibers. I have visited this in the past during the Puget Sound’s yarn crawl.Its a special shop and has some offerings that I don’t see in a lot of the other local yarn shops (which is saying a lot because there are a bunch of them around western Washington)

Okay, so back to the Skagit Tulip Festival, it is a month long festival and there are fields of daffodils and tulips to go see. The daffodils always bloom first and earlier in the month and are randomly planted in fields. They are beautiful it is looking like a sea of yellow, after they finish blooming the tulips come throughout the month. If you like Tulips you will have to do to either Tuliptown or Roozengaarde. These are two places that offer the ability to walk through the tulip fields and take photos and look at the many varieties of tulips.

My fun weekend plans…. okay isn’t everyone’s idea of a fun Saturday night but I spend Saturday sorting through my “downstairs” stash.I really can’t believe how long it took to expatriate my spinning fiber from my yarn. If I am going to be honest it is not like I am surprised that it took so long or there was that much fiber, but more that it was fun.

So while it is not glamorous it felt really good to have this off the “todo”list.Maybe I need bigger goals but this one felt good.

Its been a little over a week since I has the opportunity to attend the DFW Fiber Fest. It was a total coincendence that I happened to be in town and I only got to attend for a couple of hours but it was wonderful. I took some pictures of a few things that I wanted to be sure to share with you and remember.

A beautiful new base by Magpie Fibers that was “new to me”A local mill using texas wool and spun in TexasAnother new to me yarn. I had a delightful time talking to the vendor about fades and I picked up a couple of minis. I am still thinking of the colorway “Tandoori” but I just didn’t need another full skein of speckled yarn.Beautifull self striping yarn from Amy Lee at Canon Hand DyesRoss Farms.. definitely a find, all the way from PA, they are a vendor that also sells at Rhinebeck and focuses on heritage breed sheep.A beautiful sample from in the Canon Hand Dyes boothFiber art pieces littered throughout the lobby…It was fun looking at the fiber art. Finding them was like finding Easter eggs

This festival has been around for a few years but the primary reason I went was to say hello and meet an Instagram friend @Thing4string who spins and dyes yarn. Her stuff in my opinion is in the top three of the handspun I have encountered in real life. I first stumbled upon it through my friend @symonangel had made some socks with her handspun and I was amazed because Micki aka @thing4string spun seilfstiping yarn with evenly placed stripes ( this is not the norm and I have only seen this once but, the fact it could still occur blow my mind as a hand spinner) So while it may make it harder to buy her yarn I want to share with you all where you can procure her yarn http://athingforstring.bigcartel.com because it is so awesome.

A close up of the Micki’s handspun in a sock she knit. She has granted me permission to use this photo.

I know Edinburgh Yarn Fest was last month and I didn’t get to go but lately, I have been obsessed with watching footage of people’s experience on YouTube. It looks amazing, this year Fiber Festivals are not really in the cards( oddly enough it is a coincidence that I will be able to pop in at the Dallas Fort Worth Fiber Festival which crazily enough coincides with my daughter’s spring break and a visit to my in-laws). I don’t get out much, at least beyond my comfort zone. It could be because I am raising a kid, or getting sucked into a new crossword puzzle or watching more things on YouTube.

I know as knitters, crocheters, and spinners most of us are introverts; we sit at home, connect with Ravelry, or meet with local knitting groups. I rememeber a few years ago I was better at getting online and connect through forums on Ravelry, it was something I really enjoyed doing.

I don’t know what has happened if I have already found my “tribe” and just connect with them when we are able to connect or if I just have gotten busy but one thing I have noticed that that amount of time that I have spent “peopling” in pretty limited.

The stress level these last 12 months has been high and I don’t deny that I have been pouring myself into solitary activities…. so maybe next year I will make it a goal to “people” just a little bit more.

Spring has sprung and, if you have been looking at Instagram lately there are some really spectacular places that have been visited for Spring break. It has been fantastic seeing new places. I have seen pictures from California, Hawaii, to Japan.

I have also been in touch with my friends on what they are taking on their trips. I am getting ready to leave for a small trip this weekend and I am starting to think about what to pack. It’s not a really big trip but just like every other knitter I have a fantasy of getting a massive amount on a current WIP or bringing a bunch of projects done and having the illusion that you will have so much free time to knit on whatever project you want. The struggle is real.. and I can’t decide what to bring.